I got more into the whole Christmas spirit today. See, I’ve had a hard time believing it’s really Christmas time because I think I did all my shopping too early. I was pretty much done by September. Having finished all of that gift-preparation stuff so early, I didn’t really have to think about it to much. And now, Christmas has really snuck up on me. I did manage to get a little more Christmasy last week when I put together the tree and forced myself to listen to some Christmas music. But it wasn’t until tonight that I actually got the fever.

Stephen and I had planned to meet up around 3:45pm to watch a movie (okay, originally we planned to go to the new Air & Space Museum, then changed that to going to see lights, then changed it to going to a movie theater, then changed that to just watching a movie at my house.) As soon as I met him at the door and let him inside, he said, “I had a thought!” He then went on to say that we should bedeck my house in Christmas lights since it would be fun, and I think he said he’d never done it before – but I could very easily be wrong about that, as my memory has been worth absolutely nill today. I loved this idea because I’ve been wanting to put up lights for a while now, but it’s always been rather cold and no one wanted to help me. So as soon as Stephen said it, I jumped on the chance, pull on my shoes, and off we went to Target to buy some lights.

We wandered around the light department and was happy to see that they weren’t entirely sold out. Well, they were sold out of every mini light set except for purple mini lights. That was fine with me because hey, it obviously showed that we would have the most unique house on the block. Mom had given us a budget of $26 to spend on lights, so we put 15 sets in the cart, along with some tinsel. But, much to our surprise, while we were being checked-out, we found out the lights were on sale! They were far cheaper than we expected and we still had about $6 to spend. We put the lights in the car, then went back for more. Ultimately, we ended up buying 2000 mini purple lights. 😀 It was great! And, to top it all off, we also decided we needed to add some silver. But since our budget was spent, the only pretty silvery option was to sneak a whole bunch of those free AOL CDs. Fortunately, Target was well stocked in that department. While I paid for the lights, Stephen snuck off and put a lot of those CDs in his pockets. On the way out, we both grabbed some more and put them in the bags. We did that *both* times we went through the check-out. 😀 I’m still not sure how many CDs we ended up with, but it was somewhere around 35.

As we were fighting our way out of the Target parking lot, we decided we wanted to suspend some lights in the yard. Trying to decide what to use to suspend the lights, I immediately thought of paint-stirring sticks. You know, those flat wooden sticks that Lowe’s and Home Depot hand out when you buy paint. So off we went to Lowe’s, where a nice man gave me ten sticks. There was a Wal-Mart across the parking lot, so we went there too and collected twelve more. All in all, that was enough to create a low little purple hedge along the sidewalk that leads up to our front door. Isn’t that lovely?

We spent a few hours thereafter arranging the lights, trying to be as creative as possible. I made the lovely hedge, then we set to work creating our own little pink forest (we realized once we pulled the lights out that they seemed more pink than purple. We’ve decided it’s in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness… or something.) We made three light trees using massive copper pipes we had in the garage, which we pounded into the ground with help from my Dad, and then draped lights up and over them to form a lovely little cone. I then added some tinsel around them to further illustrate the shape of a tree. Stephen then added the finishing touch of hanging some CDs as ornaments. Cute, eh?

Stephen was also a very good sport by putting a bunch of lights on the bushes. I’m *very* glad he did that bit, because that’s my least favorite job. I’m too much of a perfectionist when it comes to putting lights on bushes. I have to attach the lights every foot or so to a teensy little branch, they have to be perfectly spread apart and symmetrical, et cetera et cetera. Stephen, however, was brilliant at laying the lights around the bushes and somehow they ended up looking perfect. All in all, I think the yard is fabulous! But, I have to admit… I still want to add a few more trees. 🙂

Want to see pictures? I tried to take pics as best I could, but since it was dark and all, my camera didn’t do so well. So I took a picture without flash to illustrate the glow of the lights, and then another picture of the same scene to illustrate exactly how the lights were placed. Basically, I did one overall shot, and then a closer picture of the largest tree. Oh, and there’s also a picture of the Christmas tree I decorated on a budget of only $30. Unfortunately, that wasn’t very photogenic either – the tree looks like it’s humongous and therefore makes all the decorations look really teensy. Plus, it doesn’t show the cool blue glow from all the twinkly lights. Alas. At least you’ll get the general idea.

Tomorrow (as in today, since it’s past midnight, but I’m still on Heather Time), I think I’m going to attempt to make lovely Asian chicken lettuce wraps – that’s my favorite dish from P.F. Chang’s, and I’ve decided I think I could make it on my own. So I bought some Asian sauces, oils, and spices last night to give it a go. If I do manage to get that done tomorrow, I’ll let you know how it goes.

And finally, before I forget *again*, Happy Hanukkah! I meant to say that way back on the 19th, but it totally slipped my mind. I swear, my memory’s been killing me the past few weeks. And Happy Kwanzaa as well – I really love that holiday. I actually celebrated it one year just to learn about it and it was great. So go Kwanzaa! Well, I’ve celebrated Hanukkah too, and you know, that was fun too. And if you’re celebrating something different this year, then have a good time with it. All together, happy holidays. 🙂